Celeste Headlee

After Georgetown University Law student Sandra Fluke spoke on Capitol Hill about her university's coverage of contraception, radio host Rush Limbaugh criticized her on his show. Those comments quickly went viral, and over 40 of Limbaugh's advertisers have pulled their sponsorship of the radio show.

In this video, host Celeste Headlee provides her take on today's show which touched on some tough topics, including the continued dispute over the debt ceiling in Washington and the growing scandal surrounding News Corp. across the pond. Here, Celeste turns her focus elsewhere, congratulating the U.S. women's soccer team on their efforts in yesterday's final World Cup match against Japan, and warning our listeners against the dangers of the current heat wave.  

We're having fun with a new feature: quick videos with hosts after the show. In today's episode, host Celeste Headlee reacts to our coverage of the continuing battle over principle in Washington's debt ceiling talks, and the continuing struggle for America's unemployed. Are they focused on the right priorities? It's a question we've been asking listeners, and one that has generated a lot of response. 

Through our series, "My America," we've been asking a lot of people whether they consider themselves patriots. I'd like to answer that question for myself. I love my country and I love my countrymen. If the measure of patriotism is a willingness to defend your country (not your government), then I am a patriot. 

In July, our Summer Book Club continues. This month, Celeste Headlee picks her reads. She explains her reading philosophy with a little help from our listeners, noting that heavy lifting doesn't necessarily fit with the beach. She says your summer reading should keep your mind "high and light." 

Pundits have been noting what they see as some long-shot candidates in the running for president in 2012. Most agree that Michele Bachmann is probably a long- shot. But at one time a fresh-faced senator from Illinois was considered a long shot for the presidency, and yet here we are. This is America, where anything can happen with a lot of hard work and keeping your "eyes on the prize," right? Celeste Headlee takes us through an exploration of long shots in U.S. history.

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Gustav Mahler's death. Celeste Headlee remembers the impressive works of the world famous composer that still resonate today. The late Romantic Austrian-Bohemian composer, who at the end of his life directed the New York Philharmonic, was famous for an obsession with composing symphonies.

I can easily trace my family line back to the Civil War.  I imagine a lot of people can, and I'm sure that there are more than a few whose lives were altered by that conflict. It was slavery that brought my mother's family to the U.S, it was slavery that produced my great-grandmother, a product of a slave named Anne and her Scotch-Irish owner. It was slavery that was at the heart of the rift that caused the Civil War. It was the Civil War that gave Anne her freedom, and allowed her daughter to get an education.

Most Americans have an ancestor that fought on one side of the war or the other. Maybe you had a great-great-great grandfather who fought against "Northern aggression," or a far removed aunt who nursed the boys in blue at an army hospital. Maybe both. The branches of my family tree include both slaves and owners, both the blue and the grey. In 1861, it was brother against brother; in 2011, it's an internal war against ourselves.

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and start reviling Glenn Beck or Gilbert Gottfried or the shallow UCLA girl on YouTube. Better minds than mine have already articulated why it's wrong to pile insult on top of deep, tragic injury.

Instead, I want to appeal to my countrymen to rise above these nasty comments. Let me begin with Alec Sulkin, a scriptwriter for "Family Guy" who tweeted the following: “If you wanna feel better about this earthquake in Japan, google “Pearl Harbor death toll.” Let's turn that around and imagine someone had written this ten years ago, "If you want to feel better about 9/11, google "My Lai Massacre." Sure, the first amendment protects that kind of speech, but doesn't your conscience prevent you from saying it?

"I feel like she's black. I'm black and I'm her mother, and I believe in the one-drop theory."

- Halle Berry in 2010

“I don't think it should matter what the color of one’s skin is. I think it’s really important to me to be part of movies that reflect the modern society. In modern times we are mixing races and having families and loving each other. I’m of a mixed race family so it's very normal for me.”

- Halle Berry in 2008

You could argue that Halle Berry is not the ideal source for insightful academic discussions of race, identity and multiracial identity. But I would respond by reminding you that Halle Berry has lived as a mixed race woman for 44 years. Her father left when she was four and she was raised by her white mother, and Ms. Berry has often talked about the moment when she was forced to decide how to describe herself, as either black or white, and she says that she didn't "feel white."

Sarah Palin puts what looks like a target on a district in Arizona on her website. Her Tea Party opponent holds "Get on Target" campaign events and invites voters to "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office — shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." A disturbed young man in Arizona attends an event with a congresswoman and opens fire with fully automatic Glock. Is there a direct connection between the savage rhetoric and the brutal attack?

This week, as we inch closer to the holidays, we wonder about home. What is it? Where is it? And what are the essentials, the bare minimum to make a place home? It's a complex question for me.

The image of home is a changeable picture for me. I lived in the same home through my 18th birthday, and the smells and textures of my childhood home are still familiar. I can imagine the bumpy green carpet of the hallway; imagine sliding down that long staircase without hitting the banister and relaxing on the fuzzy orange bean bag while watching “The Love Boat.”

As we continue our week long series of what "home" means, Celeste Headlee, joins in on the fun. She and her kids share their idea of what "home" is, especially after having moved so many times.

Sparky Anderson, beloved longtime manager for the Detroit Tigers, died yesterday. Celeste Headlee had the privilege of interviewing Anderson many times, as did Ron Cameron, long time host of the Detroit sports radio show Sports Talk. 

Over the weekend, Takeaway host Celeste Headlee and Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich talked to people at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear to find out why they came and what they hoped would be the new Congress's legislative agenda.

(Check out a slideshow of some of our favorite signs after the jump.)

What struck me most about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear?" The attendees were not the people that Washington thinks they are. Yes, there were plenty of college students, pot smokers, and 20-somethings who rarely vote.  But of the 20 people that I spoke to as they passed by me on the National Mall, not one of them fit that description.  In fact, only two were younger than 40. 

Many politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are comfortable dismissing the Daily Show and Colbert crowd as not serious, and non-voting.  I think that's a mistake.  The majority of the people I saw were middle-aged or retired, politically active, and fed up with politics. 

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United, there were all kinds of doomsday predictions about the impact of the ruling. Most famously was Barack Obama's comments during his State of the Union address:

"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

Mark Zuckerberg gets a feature film made about his life and he's not happy with it. I'm not surprised. Apart from his incredible success with Facebook, I'm sure the guy is dealing with all the same issues that most people in their 20s do — conflicting ideas about identity and morality, struggles for true independence, bad dating experiences. Clearly, he's not worried about bounced checks, credit card debt or student loan payments, but I imagine that the rest is the same.

Not long ago, we asked what it means to be rich in the United States today. Now we're asking what it means to be middle class, and the two definitions depend on each other. The boundaries of one abut the other. I think my favorite definition of wealthy came from one of our listeners. She said that when you're rich, everything works. You don't worry about incoming bills, flat tires, broken appliances or emergency room visits because you never have to wonder if you have the money to cover the cost.

Why don't we talk more about the Great Migration, a time that saw six million African Americans leave the South in search of work and freedom? Our own Celeste Headlee is, herself, a product of this slow, leaderless shift that occurred over the course of six decades. She shares her family's story.